Old Scars
by Lanfear Lady of Chaos
Summary: Years after the tragedy that changed her life, Lavenda wanders the Blight alone, until a ghost from her past finds her. Sequel to Cut Apart. Stand alone.
1. Hatred

Author's note: This is a sequel to Cut Apart, a continuation of Lavenda's story. No, Cut Apart is not done; if all goes well, that will continue too. We plan on writing both at once, revealing bits of what happened.

Only the pov written as Lavenda is mine. New writers have joined in addition to Mentiri and her. I hope this does not decrease the quality of the posts.

The world of Randland belongs to the lovely Robert Jordan.

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Absent.

Revive.

Past.

Ultimatum.

_Blind for ten years and still I am pathless..._ Mentiri felt the soft splashes of rain slick down his shamed body with a certain glee in their guts. They smiled at his failure, yes, they danced about on his skin as hot as pyre while cold as ashes. His teeth grit and his pale skin blackened with a rage he had only felt in the days he was truly blind...the way he felt now. Entering a forbidden waste such as this blight to conquer, all he had achieved was loss. Leaving with a party of six, he was now one. One man. Left to perform such futile tasks like "rid the world of evil" and "defend the innocent." What has he now? What does he do now? His eyes would have wept for him had they been alive to this day, but like so much else in his cursed life they were taken from him.

Taken.

_What now? What now Mentiri? What now Da'gere? Ha, you once were proud to have that name, and now all you do is loathe the very days you were such a man. That man has been dead for so long, and you killed him. You killed...so many others. You and this waste are one! Killed so many...do you even remember their names you piece of waste? DO YOU?_

"I REMEMBER!" Mentiri screamed in a lustful anger, one that he regretfully admitted that he enjoyed, and he smiled, feeling as though if he were to die of hell this very second he would welcome it's torture with a sarcastic taunt. He stood, his black cloak now shredded feathers from the doomed battle, and his skin showing more prominent than his once polished armor. The black band 'round his eyes was darker than ever, and seemed to melt into his face as actual flesh. His palms longed for the curves of his weapon, Song, and he curled his fingers in contempt for dropping his beloved. _How many have you called friend and foe, and how many have you killed?_ He felt the night smother him down to the soil, and he seemed as small as a dead blade of vine. _When will the killer justify the slaughtered? Hasn't it been justified for years?_ He felt the wind push him a step forward, and then another, as he slowly began to walk, blind, into the darkle of blissful death, the closest he has ever been to it.

"When will I be the innocent dead?"

_Never._

xxxx

_I've been here too long._

The heat caressed Lavenda's skin along with the warm rain, so similar and yet so very different from the land she rightfully called home. _No, not home._ Her face hardened further, if that was even possible. _Never again will that Light-forsaken wasteland be home._ But her heart rebelled against her head, telling her different from what she now knew. And thought. _Some bonds run too deep… like my dearest Laina… and Jacquelynn… I'm sorry, Jacquelynn, but I needed to do this. This, or go completely mad… like… like…_ Then her mind and heart worked together to overwhelm _that_ particular thought. _Just focus on the task at hand. If it can be called a task…I_ am _going insane._

The stench of rotting trees lingered in her nostrils, almost bearable after so many days. Deftly swiping at the growths that seemed to reach out for her- likely they did- she walked on, adjusting her spears and bow as she did so. As always in the Blight, her black veil lay across her face, light in spite of the humid air. Her boots left no print behind her on the damp ground. The only way anyone could tell she even existed, was not a shadow ghosting behind the rocks, was the blood covering her fighting clothes alongside the rain. Trolloc blood, and even a Halfman's life had spilled onto the cloth despite her most nimble dances.

_What am I searching for? Can I find forgiveness for my kin's sins by killing? Can I find forgiveness for myself? What is there for me here?_

A scream in the distance, all too normal for this haunted land. Yet something in the shriek seemed almost… human… But that, too, was normal. Any creature of Leafblighter seemed too human for any comfort. Nevertheless, she trotted up the nearest rise to look. It might even be something for her to slay. Even at worst… no. It was always better not to think of the worst.

A figure shimmered in the haze and rain, but not too far that she could not easily catch up. _A Halfman?_ No, there. A cloak rustled. Not a Halfman, then, but that meant next to nothing. Then another whisper of sound floated to her on a putrid breeze. It seemed… familiar… somehow. A face hovered just out of her reach. A voice seemed to ring in her ears, but she couldn't hear it. Her heart wouldn't let her. Now the figure was moving towards her, further into the Blight, when they were already so deep…

The tiniest ray of light escaped its cloudy prison , lighting up the dim landscape for the briefest moment; but then, a moment is all Lavenda ever needed.

Memory rushed back.

_Mentiri…_

xxxx

"Ya know, this hell on earth would be more tolerable if there might be some pubs to play and drink in, but sadly, this is hell. Where good times can never be had."

Talking to himself made Nik feel a little more sane at times. It had been days since he lost contact with Mentiri, Fa Tseung, and the others. And he still didn't know where he was going.

"Not like I ever really did." Nikolai said as he kept walking aimlessly around the cursed Blight. "I do hope the rest of the group is keeping their sanity better than I am. Blasted nothingness that is the blight. Why did I come here again? Oh yeah, a story. Dammit Nik all you ever do is chase stories you stupid, stupid, light-be-blasted gleeman. GRAH!" Nik sat down with a short grunt in the middle of the rain soaked wasteland. "Well, at least I didn't get too wet in that rain that passed, though it does feel as if it's going to rain yet again." He had found shelter enough in a deserted cave during the first shower, but now he didn't see anything that was even partly habitable. No sooner had the thought passed his mind that it began to pour.

"My blasted luck, eh? Well, maybe I can find something in those hills over here, that looks dark enough to maybe be some trees." As he stood again, he heard a nearly inhuman scream in the distance to his right. "Blast, I had better find cover before whatever that was finds me." Suddenly his feet didn't feel as tired as they were less a moment before.

xxxx

_Did I wish upon a time to feel this way? Or have I just forgotten that there is such a feeling as happiness? I have been journeying for so long...journeying for what? What I want died long ago, so why do I stay here?_

Mentiri stood still.

_That Glow..._ Unbelievable. Undeniable. Unrelenting. It reminded him of warmth, power, and a soul whose adventure and honey scent could never leave his memory, never fully. Such a figure of perfection should not be here...why is it here? He reminisced the days long gone, years and years gone. He bowed his head for a second as he pace, and he felt a single split of rain fall into his ear. The Glow flickered a deep red for just an instant to him, and suddenly, all of the forbidden past soaked into his mind. _I'm sorry._

Mentiri saw the golden shine within his darkness, and it was as if an angel of death was floating down to him.

"Have you come to battle me?" he spoke to softly to himself, not knowing whether this angel would be graceful to him. "If so, you will be the victor, though not flawless. I am without wind here...and without Song." Mentiri walked closer and closer to the Glow. "And maybe, that's just what I need...you are my angel of death, Lavenda."

xxxx

_It's not possible!_

In denial Lavenda stared across the distance separating them, closing slowly as the ghost from her past moved closer. Breaths of wind brought mutters to her ears.

_He's_ dead! _And I_ like _it that way! Liked… It's not fair. He can't be back…_

Unconsciously, she hefted her spears. _When did I take_ them_ out?_ The glittering blades whistled through the air as she twirled them around her thumbs, glaring the distance to him, almost nothing now. Strands of fiery hair escaped her head scarf, adding to the wildness of her eyes.

_If you didn't die then, Mentiri, I'll make you wish you did. That I swear to you._ Her never-ending patience ran out, and she closed the final steps to the blind man, carefully keeping her spears slicing the air to ribbons a hairs-width from his face.

Unable to stand the familiar eyeless stare, she broke the silence left by his scream.

"Why are you here, Mentiri? Do you wish to take from me everything you somehow missed before?"

Her eyes spat sparks. "If you wanted to die, Mentiri, you came to the right place, for before you stands the one being that can and will put a blade through your heart in a blink of the eye." Lavenda had to do something or kill the old warder before he replied. Moving her hands the slightest bit possible, her blades moved closer to his face.

A tiny scratch appeared on Mentiri's cheek as his black eye band fluttered to the ground.

xxxx

_Now which way is North Nik? You think its that way? well you're probably wrong._ "Ya know what voice in my head? You would be a lot easier to deal with if you didn't heckle me all day long." _If you're so eager to silence me, why don't you go see what that screaming was you heard a moment ago?_ "Okay, fine, I will. And maybe you'll finally leave me alone when I show you that I can take care of meself." That settled with himself, Nikolai decided to test fate by walking right into his impending doom.

He turned right around and saw two figures in the distance. One looked like the night had swallowed him whole and spat him back out. "A forsaken or some other evil, you can never tell what is what in this light blasted place." The other, dressed lighter, what looked like the side of a mountain. "I wouldn't notice 'im if he wasn't holding that sword to the other's face."

Nikolai took a deep breath, drew his twin blades, and proceeded to trot quickly towards the figures. "Hopefully I'll go unconscious from exhaustion before I die, to keep me from screaming at the top of my lungs for mercy. That's no way for a gleeman to go." He hoped this other figure stayed alive long enough for him to get a couple of slashes in before his death. "Ah well, I do always say the light favors the brave and the stupid. Shall we see which I am today?" With that, Nikolai broke into a run.

xxxx

The Glow entered Mentiri's True Sight, and it shown like a gorgeous golden figure running and dancing about in the darkness, singing. Its light affected all pitted blackness in his eye, and now even the most shadowed cracks and corners of Mentiri's vision were now a slight orange colour. It made him feel tender and warmth simultaneously alongside a damp death and corroded blanket of fear. He grasped at the golden sun, it's power sheerly maddening, trying to understand it's secrets, just as he tried all those ages ago.

"Why are you here, Mentiri?" _Why am I here? In this spot of my life, trying to rid the world of...evil. The same stagnant spot as always._ Mentiri sighed. _Maybe you should end this insanity._

"Do you wish to take from me everything you somehow missed before?" _I may _have_ taken everything, everything but your life._ Mentiri's hand felt an emotion to extend towards the tortured, lost Aiel, but his mind refused, thinking that she would probably just make him cripple as well as blind. He felt those deadly spear blades of hers wisp around without moving, remembering her cunning precision and mutilating charges. She stood close to Mentiri now, their bodies capable of friendly touch -as it once was- and still he felt her blades cutting the air apart around him. He said nothing still.

Her shining, golden eyes spat sparks, tiny little beams of light that flooded Mentiri's perceptions and pooled into the back of his mind, creating a well of guilt where he was asleep at the bottom, drowning. "If you wanted to die, Mentiri, you came to the right place, for before you stands the one being that can and will put a blade through your heart in a blink of the eye."

_Lavenda, I have wronged you. I welcome your wrath._

Her blades moved closer to Mentiri's face, blazing with golden, searing hatred.

A tiny scratch appeared on Mentiri's cheek as his black eye band fluttered to the ground, and then...

Silence.

"We all bear scars, Lavenda."


	2. Forgiveness

_Light, I want to kill him… he's not supposed to make it this hard! Curse him!_ The whistling blades came to a sudden stop resting on his cheeks, just below the marred flesh where Mentiri's eyes once were.

"Light blind you, Mentiri," she spat before she realized her mistake. Her tongue always managed to get away from her, but she refused to blush. "The Light blind your inner sight, if it hasn't done that already." Lavenda bit her lip, wanting to strike out but not able to make her arms move.

"Arg!" The sound escaped from her lips as she turned, facing the bleak landscape behind her. Ragged nails dug into calloused palms as she wrestled with her composure. Coolheaded reason won, fortunately for both of them.

"It's not fair of you to tempt me so, Mentiri. There is far too much blood on my hands already, innocent or not." She stared into the clouded sky, welcoming the light rain that washed into her eyes, taking away the beginnings of tears. _What is wrong with me? Years of building up walls, and one moment brings them all tumbling down…_

"Just because someone has scars already doesn't mean a new one hurts less."

xxxx

As Nikolai headed towards the two dark figures, he now realized that the two were talking. With this realization, Nik stopped short of tripping on a large rock in the way of his foot. _You idiot! You don't know if they are friend of foe, yet you're just standing here waiting for them to recognize you? Idiot!_ "Oh hush you bothersome cur!" Nikolai cursed as he kicked himself in the shin. "Gah, Myarhena is so much better company than yourself. When was the last you saw her Nik? a few weeks ago? Hah, fool, she's gone too. You failure."

"Eh, let's forget about how pathetic I am and see if I can't figure out who these people are, and what they're doing in this light forsaken land." He sheathed his swords under his cloak and proceeded to creep closer towards the two people. He got within about 20 spans of the unknown people, placed himself in some rotting brush, and watched, listening. He saw the party with the weapon drawn look upwards and back behind her, as hea had just realized it was a 'her' from the voices he heard, and began to catch the slight bits that were carried to him.

"It is not fair of you...much blood on my hands...innocent or not...doesn't mean a new one hurts less."

"Well, it seems they know each other very well. I think I will lie here a minute longer to see if I can find anything out about the tall...dark...oh light! It's Mentiri! Wow, he looks like seven hellfires washed over him. Maybe I can get closer..." With that, Nikolai got on his stomach and tried to creep a little closer to find out what was happening to his lost friend.

xxxx

"Just because someone has scars already doesn't mean a new one hurts less."

Her words seeped and dripped and petrified within the tombs of Mentiri's dying mind, crackling and twisting like a dreadful serpent, tonguing the back of his eyeless gaze. He felt a swelling tumor of guilt flooding the depths of his black heart a newer color...perhaps it's birth pigment. _Was I always so black?_ His mouth opened as if to say something, but what to say to her? What could he possibly say to her after all these years to comfort, apologize, relent...her scars?

"What can I do to heal your scars?" Mentiri asked, his voice sounding more tender than he had predicted. He saw the glowing golden woman look up, and all her eyes shown blinded Mentiri's True sight, forcing him to snap his inner eyelids shut. His fists clenched and he felt new red blood rush over it's dried brown predecessors, his body wavering with the weakened state it was in. He extended his red hands to her as he stumbled to one knee, feeling his thoughts escape him. It was a turbulent rush of swirling blues and grays, billowing up into majestic peaks of subliminal beliefs and knowledge to create a masterful milestone on which he tried to stand, but was to weak to lock his footing.

"What do you want me to do...to heal your scars?" he asked again, his voice a hoarse whisper now.

"What do you want..." The glow began to flutter in his vision, the blackness that had always enveloped him seemed to be forcing the beautiful gold from his sight. He looked into Lavenda's eyes with the meshy dry scar upon his face, begging her with his mind to hear his thoughts.

_I'm so tired of this darkness._

xxxx

The back of her neck seemed to burn in his eyeless stare till she couldn't stand it anymore and turned, then looked instead at the ground. The tattered piece of black cloth lay in a puddle of darkness on the damp ground.

"What can I do to heal your scars?" Lavenda's head snapped up, unable to believe the compassion that filled his voice. _Of course, he has feelings_ now… And if her head made any sense at all right now she would want to kill him for making her this confused but instead a little feeling kept niggling on the inside of her head where she couldn't get to it and it made her _hate_ him but at the same time there was…

love…

His whisper brought her back as he fell to his knees before her. Mentiri's 'eyes' bored into hers, pleading with her.

_Light take it all! _

Just as he seemed about to tumble forward onto his face, Lavenda dropped to her knees beside him, catching his shoulders. "I don't know what I want, Mentiri," she breathed, more to herself then him. Despite having no eyes to show it, he seemed unconscious, or so close he might as well be. Too busy with her internal struggled to notice before, she examined his torn body, taking in the freshly bloodied hands and parched lips.

"Oh, Mentiri," she murmured, "What am I going to do with you?" _But it seems like this goes beyond the merely physical…_

xxxx

Falling to his savior's arms and grace, Mentiri found something of a piece of peace inside, and smiled. Lavenda noticed this and faintly smiled as well. The sweet scent of adventure and happiness flooded his nose and he chuckled softy.

_Do you...do you still care about me? _

"Do you…still..." he shuddered, trying to make out the words. He suddenly longed for his body to be in a condition worth battling, so that he could stand before his past strongly. But as it turned out, Mentiri was shattered and beaten...and now his past was the only thing keeping him alive. Or even caring for him, for that matter.

"What are you trying to say, Mentiri?" the angel asked, looking into the deep scar as if he had eyes. Very respectable, thought Mentiri, You are the first to see this in many years.

"Tell me!" Mentiri felt ashamed that he could not function as he should, especially now that a chance he had been battling towards had finally come. Irony, irony. Now that he was here, at a moment he had dreamt about and prepared for the last few years, he could not grasp it, do what he imagined, or even speak.

Mentiri thought he could see in the distance two forms, one upon a horse and the other pacing. In his state nothing could be sure...see! They were of shadow! Mentiri struggled to get to his feet, partially succeeding by holding on to his angel's shoulder. One was a new evil; he had never encountered this being before...the other...had a certain familiarity about it.

"What is it? What do you see?" she asked. Mentiri trembled a finger to point ahead of them, to the two evil beings that approached.

xxxx

From his place in the dead bushes and grass Nikolai watched the events unfold. Suddenly, Mentiri was on his knees. He looked as if he had been beaten at his own game, then beaten again for good measure, and then again to see that he never tried again. He heard Mentiri mumble something strangely inaudible, as he struggled to his feet, being braced by the woman. With both their backs to him, he saw Mentiri's hand rise to point off in the distance at something. _Alright, enough of this waiting in the bushes, Mentiri needs help, and as many friends as possible, it seems._

Nikolai made it to his feet and proceeded to make his way over to the pair. "Mentiri! Friend! Would you like another shoulder to lean on?" He made sure to keep his arms open so the woman hopefully wouldn't think to run him through with something rather sharp.

xxxx

Lavenda about jumped out of her skin at the sound of a voice behind her. Instead, she picked up one of the spears she had dropped- _dropped!_- and half-turned, making sure to still hold up Mentiri.

_Light blinded, that's what I am… Light-blasted wind had to go and blow in the other direction!_

Before she had even finished turning, she saw his open arms, weaponless. "If you say you are a friend of Mentiri's," she called, "Come quickly. There's been a shortage lately, I suspect." Unable to spare a further glance at the man she dismissed as no threat- _probably no help, either_- she looked along Mentiri's arm at the figures approaching.

"But what is it, if you know?" she murmured. "You do know, don't you?" She didn't press for an answer; it was obvious most of his energy was going into staying conscious.

_Do you think you can protect me, Mentiri? As you tried to do before? _A brief whinny was carried on the winds to her sensitive ears, at least proving the beings that human. But then, Halfmen were that human.

As the man struggled again to get to his feet Lavenda rose with him, slinging one arm around his waist to keep him up.

"I don't suppose you're any good with a spear?" she called to the newcomer, who had come up on Mentiri's other side. "Or perhaps a Healer in disguise?"


	3. Attack

"A Healer? No, unfortunately not," Nikolai said as he took Mentiri's shoulder over his own. "And I can say that I'm not very good with a spear, but I have my own blades to defend myself with." With his free hand, he opened his slightly tattered vest to show the handles of quite a few daggers

"And there's dozens more where they came from. Do you expect whatever Mentiri is pointing at is going to come right to us?" Without weighing just what exactly those small, dark figures might be, he brought his own thoughts out- "How about we try to find somewhere, far away from whatever those figures are in the distance, and try to help Mantiri here out with what's ailing 'im, eh?" Nikolai pulled half of 'Shaii-T'ai' from its sheath in his belt and pointed to the south and west of where they were.

"There's a cave a little ways back that way, we can make it there and start patching Mentiri up a bit before those two unknowns think anything of us. Unless you really want to go and meet them with only two of us?" _I really hope she doesn't want to go meet them with a fight. _"By the way, I'm Nikolai, who might you be?"

xxxx

Lavenda let out a low whistle when the stranger revealed a collection of daggers she wouldn't be ashamed to own. _Hopefully he's as good with them as he seems to think he is… Although if he really _is_ Mentiri's friend, he's probably picked a few things up. At least. _ Retreating wasn't all that appealing to her instincts, but a little nudge of logic warned her fighting with two of them, not to mention defending Mentiri, would not be an easy feat.

_Bloody Mentiri, always thinking about himself…_ Wanting to get rid of that line of thought as quickly as possible, she took the injured man's other shoulder. "I'm sure they are," she told Nikolai across Mentiri's chest, which was thankfully still moving. _You're alive… for now. But when you wake up, you had better be ready to answer for a few things! Properly!_ The Aiel woman shook her head.

"I've seldom seen a look like the one he got when he saw-" she jerked her head- "them."

"Which means they're quite dangerous, and likely Shadowspawn of some sort." A sharp, hot metal scent floated to her on the wind. "And definitely evil." Grudgingly, she turned away from the distant pair.

"I am called Lavenda," she told her new companion. "and I highly suggest we get somewhere to 'patch him up'". Lavenda had rarely seen that look before, but if whatever was coming could put it on Mentiri's face, she wanted high ground.

And Mentiri fighting alongside her.

A few extra spears would be nice, too.

xxxx

While conversing over what their decision would be, Nikolai heard the all too familiar _"thunk"_ of an arrow meeting the ground close by. "I find this plan of action fairly appealing, Lavenda. Shall we go?"

As they turned he heard, and saw this time, an arrow meet with the trunk of a tree, not a foot away from his own head, almost dead center where his stomach might have been. "And, ah, let's make a tad of haste?" _Damnit Mentiri, why are you so heavy?_

Nikolai looked over his shoulder at the attackers now and saw there was only one. "Uhm, this may or may not be good news, but where two stood, there now stands only one. Experience declares the other is either magically dead, or is coming right for us where we can't see 'im. Knowing the lucky streak I've been having, he's coming right for us." _And once we get to said cave, what are you going to do Nik? You just told the woman you can't heal. Well, this cloak was nice and all, but I guess I can part with some strips of it for Mentiri's health, light knows he deserves it._

"Too bad we don't have enough wood and time to make a small cart of sorts to drag him along behind us, eh?" _And where in the Light is Mentiri's sword?_

"A little more on subject, any ideas on how to keep this fellow busy whilst we make an escape? I'm sure juggling won't take to his fancy much, but with enough of this waste around us, I'm sure we could make something work to our advantage while we save our skins." _Just don't get hit by an arrow Nik, that's all you gotta do, just don't-get-hit._

xxxx

A hiss escaped Lavenda's lips as yet another arrow barely missed them. "Stand still," she told her companion, as she lifted Mentiri away from him, grunting a little. _Light, for someone so frail looking, he must have kept most of his muscle!_ Carefully, carefully, she draped the injured man over Nikolai's shoulders, like a stray sheep. Except heavier. And skinnier. "You can still walk?" It was more a statement then a question. Quickly, she took her small shield from her back, hooking it to cover Mentiri's upper back and neck. With one last thought, she briskly slapped his face, hoping to hurry his regain to consciousness.

"Now go," she told him. "I can move easily unseen, and may even be able to catch this… whatever it is. At the very least, make it hesitate to show it's face." The Aiel grimly strung her small bow, taking a wickedly barbed arrow from the quiver on her hip.

_At least I can make him- it- stop to lick its wounds,_ she thought. She hoped so. They needed at least a few minutes to ensure Mentiri wouldn't bleed to death from any wounds he had hidden. Watching the newcomer stagger away, she smiled. _It seems the roles have reversed, Mentiri. Once you tried to save me. You may have to again._

She padded stealthily behind the sparse bush, nigh on impossible for someone who had not seen the vast desert that was the Three-fold Land. Her cadin'sor, dyed back to its original colours since she left the greens of the Wetlands, blended perfectly into this grey landscape. She nocked the arrow, swiftly firing at a lump that seemed to be a head, thought not by the scent. Lavenda wrinkled her nose. _Aha,_ she thought, as it moved, her arrow barely missing. Found you.

Slipping from tree to tree, she edged closer, while still keeping Nikolai and Mentiri in the corner of her eye.

_They'll be safe soon…_


End file.
